Want the truth about Michael Bisping? Ask someone other than Michael Bisping

Want the truth about Michael Bisping? Ask someone other than Michael Bisping

Michael Bisping has a lot of positive attributes going for him, but it’s pretty clear by this point that self-awareness is not one of them.

Consider what the UFC middleweight had to say about his UFC Fight Night 48 opponent Cung Le, who he dubbed a “phony” for being polite to him in person before offering a different sentiment about him at a fan Q&A:

“I went to Macao for the launch press conference with Cung Le in June, and I was very polite, very professional,” Bisping told Gareth Davies. “I exchanged all the pleasantries, gave him all the small talk as you are supposed to in these situations, and I even went as far as pretending to be absolutely blown away that he’s apparently friends with Channing Tatum. … Then I see him on UFC.com doing a Fight Club Q&A and he’s talking a load of bulls–t about me. Basically, he’s jumped on the same old, boring bandwagon everyone else who fights me does, which is to say what a smack-talker I am while, as always, they are the ones who talk crap first. What a phony. If he had a problem with me then he could have spared me all the boring anecdotes about Channing Tatum.”

Can you believe it? Yet another opponent has somehow confused Bisping with a person who disparages other fighters. The only sensible response to that is call the other guy a phony and a Channing Tatum fanboy. That should set the record straight.

I might be willing to give Bisping the benefit of the doubt here if this behavior weren’t so consistent on his part. It’s not just a failure to realize when he’s doing the exact thing he’s complaining about being called out for doing, either.

I remember once asking Bisping if he had any theories as to why American fans disliked him so much. His answer was, essentially, they don’t. They actually love him. It was only a vocal minority that disliked him, and they were mostly doing it just to be contrary. Such was the power of the love for Michael Bisping, at least in the mind of Michael Bisping.

The very next day he got up on a weigh-in stage in Las Vegas and gave the middle finger to a crowd that was booing him so loudly you could barely hear him when he spoke into the microphone. How odd that so many contrarians had showed up in the same place at the same time.

That’s not to say that Bisping doesn’t have plenty of fans or that those fans aren’t spread out all over the place, including some in the U.S.-of-A. I’m sure he does. I’m also sure that even some of those people showering him with boos that day in Vegas would be sad if he suddenly called it quits, since even if you hate the guy, hating him is so much fun.

He’s arrogant, known to bend a rule or two, and he has a rare gift for insults. Slap a British accent on there and a semi-permanent sneer, not to mention a complete inability to understand how he is perceived and why – he’s the anti-Chael Sonnen, in that sense – and you have yourself a villain fit for pro wrestling. If the UFC didn’t have a Michael Bisping, it would need to invent one.

All of which makes you wonder, what happens if it loses the Bisping it does have, or even just sees him sharply diminished in drawing power?

Bisping’s been a good fit for the UFC so far, not to mention a willing team player. He’s fought all over the world, often lending some semblance of star-power and controversy, driving a certain rage-fueled ratings boost to events that sorely needed it.

He’ll do that again on Saturday when he takes on Le in Macau, headlining a UFC Fight Pass event that, without a little Bisping magic, gives fans almost zero reason to care about it. He’s even managed to drum up a hint of rivalry here, which is tough to do opposite a guy as genuinely nice and inoffensive as Le.

At the same time, if Bisping can’t beat a 42-year-old fighter who seems more interested in making movies and hanging in the VIP with C-Tates, it might be a sign that he’s already done everything he’s going to do in the world of MMA.

That’s the worst-case scenario, though. My guess is Bisping will beat Le, though it’s by no means a gimme. At 35 and with a recent eye injury that seems like exactly the sort of thing that might affect a fighter for the rest of his career, there’s no telling what we should expect out of Bisping, or for how much longer.

If you’re the UFC though, you’re probably hoping for at least a few more good years. Who else could do what he does, and as reliably as he does it? Who else could so convincingly insist that his reputation as a smack-talker is undeserved, even as he is in the process of talking smack? Who else could manage to know so little about himself, while also clearly knowing at least a little something about what it takes to remain relevant in a tricky business like this?